


Butane in My Veins

by indevan



Series: Rock Band AU [44]
Category: Dragon Ball
Genre: Alternate Universe - Rock Band, Angst, F/M, Fights, Fluff and Angst, Miscarriage
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-20
Updated: 2018-08-20
Packaged: 2019-06-29 23:14:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,692
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15739287
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/indevan/pseuds/indevan
Summary: In many ways, things haven’t changed.  If someone told him that apparent rock stardom involved so much hanging about, he wouldn’t have believed them.  Half the time, he feels like his life is the same as it was in high school when they’d skip class to hide under the bleachers or in the band room during the colder months.  The only difference is that he doesn’t have the threat of his science grades hanging over him.  Well, that and his two kids





	Butane in My Veins

**Author's Note:**

> [AU timeline!](http://vertigoats.tumblr.com/post/166537761367/since-after-the-first-few-the-fics-in-rock-band)

In his dream, Kakarrot is on stage by himself.  A spotlight blinds him momentarily but then the crowd comes into view.  He has to shield his eyes with his hand to see the faces but soon they’re clear.  His band, the other bands on the label, King Kai and Jaco. Chi-Chi and his boys. His parents.  Whis and his husband. More than that. Bulma and Tarble and that weird kid Z who claims to be a musician but spends more time partying and posing half-naked on Instagram.  Launch and Mr. Roshi from the record store. The principal from his high school. Faces of people he vaguely knows like Krillin’s parents and Turles’s dad--and even that Australian guy who invited them to a party years ago after a show.  They all stare at him, expectant.

Kakarrot puts his lips to the mic but his vocal chords won’t engage.  It’s as if something is lodged in his throat. His fingers are frozen on the frets of his guitar, refusing to budge.  A grumble of dissent ripples through the crowd. He tries again, but the same thing happens. His feet are glued in place.  He can hear his own breathing, growing more frantic. Hear his heartbeat in his head.

“Get off the stage!” someone yells.

“You suck!”

Someone maybe throws something at him, but he wakes up before it makes contact.  He opens his eyes to find himself back in his bed. Next to him, Chi-Chi is still asleep.  He wants to reach out for her, but she’s been distant lately. They’ve been back from the tour for two months and at first it was so good, but now she’s acting strange and stress has been mounting and.  That dream. It isn’t helping matters. He wonders if he did something wrong. Or things had gotten too good. He and Chi-Chi had worked so hard on not making the mistakes that marred their relationship for years but maybe it’s caught up.

Or maybe she’s realized that she doesn’t want to be married to him.

Kakarrot rolls onto his back and presses the tips of his fingers against his eyes.  Maybe his body hasn’t yet adjusted to being off the road. To having a bed every night rather than sleeping on the tour bus with nameless, faceless motels dotted in between.  Of not having to sing himself hoarse every other night.

He’s been antsier than usual, but it’s been two months.  He was only gone for four. He squeezes his eyes shut. Maybe he can block it out and get some sleep.  He casts a look at Chi-Chi next to him. Her dark hair spills across her pillow and she’s wearing those cat pajamas he got her years ago.

He should talk to her.  They can’t fall back in old habits like before.  They can’t do that to Gohan again, or to Goten.

Not tonight, though.  She hates it when he wakes her up.  When they first moved into this apartment, when Gohan was born, she was always telling him to be quiet when she was trying to sleep and he’d be up playing guitar.  She would get that fussy, angry look on her face that always had soft creases from the pillow case. And then she’d tell him to shut up.

Kakarrot rolls onto his side and closes his eyes.  He thinks sleep won’t take him, but that’s never really been a problem for him and he soon drops back off into the void.

\--

Kakarrot still remembers when he got his first guitar.  He was fourteen and he and his brother were in the record store, buying their father a birthday present.  He had sold all of his records when he found out their mom was pregnant and every year, he and Raditz pooled their money together to slowly replenish it.  It was there that he saw the beaten up thing hanging up on the wall. The weird old guy who worked there who would later become his boss sold it to him for eighteen dollars--an out and out steal.

When he got home, he tried to play it but the strings were like telephone wires.  It wasn’t until Vegeta came over later and said he had to tune it (or, to be exact, said “Hey, dipshit, you have to fucking tune it!”) did he truly begin to play.

In many ways, things haven’t changed.  If someone told him that apparent rock stardom involved so much hanging about, he wouldn’t have believed them.  Half the time, he feels like his life is the same as it was in high school when they’d skip class to hide under the bleachers or in the band room during the colder months.  The only difference is that he doesn’t have the threat of his science grades hanging over him. Well, that and his two kids.

Gohan is having his lessons with Piccolo so he’s taken Goten to Vegeta and Bulma’s apartment to play with Trunks while they work on new material.  The push for it is greater. They have their songs that are crowd-pleasers, that go over live or that can be a single, but there’s a need for it. People want new material.  The other day, King Kai even mentioned something about a proper music video.

“Are you finding it hard to get back to normal?” he asks.

He shrugs. “I guess.  Hard to tell.”

Kakarrot watches their two sons playing some kind of make believe/tag hybrid as they run around the apartment and nods a little.

“You think?”

Vegeta taps his scarred hand on the polished body of the guitar and hitches his shoulder again in some kind of half-hearted shrug.

“For me, a little.  I’ve been fucking manic lately, though, so it’s kind of a combination of the two.” He yawns and then scowls at himself. “Bulma’s making an appointment for me to get my meds adjusted.”

Kakarrot has done it himself, but he’s always at least a little surprised at how casually Vegeta talks about his mental illness in a way he refused to when they were teens.  Maybe it’s because his mom was the same way. Maybe it’s his way of healing. Either way, he knows he won’t get an answer for him if he asks so instead he just makes a whining sound and grinds his forehead in his shoulder the way he would do on tour when he was missing Chi-Chi and his boys.

“Stop that,” he growls, but doesn’t shove him off.

They’ve both come far, Kakarrot thinks.  They’re maybe slightly less disastrous than they were even a few years ago.  Maybe. He figures he’s grown up--but something is still bugging him.

“Has Chi-Chi said anything to Bulma?” he asks. “About being mad about something?”

He steals a glance to Goten who’s now playing with Trunks’s toy dinosaurs.  When Gohan was two, he was already the way he is now: observant and watching.  Seeing and absorbing every fight and break up between his parents. He never wanted to put Gohan through that again or Goten through it at all.  Luckily, Goten is more involved in his game than their conversation so he thinks they can talk without worry.

“No,” Vegeta says after a minute.  He elbows him. “Now look here. You keep fucking up this progression.”

He gestures at the nearly indecipherable scribble of chords on a sheet of lined paper and Kakarrot nods.

“Nothing?” he asks, fiddling with his guitar strap.

“Nothing she’s told me.  You could ask her. She’s--” He pauses to glance down at the time on his phone, “--she’s gonna be back from the university in, like, forty-five minutes.”

He exhales and figures that they can eat up that time doing what he actually came here to do and that was work on their new material.  Music, he can almost always lose himself in. The weaving of their guitars, the way their voices clash and then move together. Goten and Trunks have stopped playing with toys and are watching with matching looks of rapt fascination.  When they finish, Trunks rushes forward to wrap his little hand around the neck of the guitar.

“I do,” he says, his gaze fierce.

He waits for Vegeta to tell him no, that they’re working but instead he moves his guitar to the side and scoops Trunks up in one arm to sit on his lap.  He moves the guitar back and fits Trunks’s fingers on the frets. At the sight of it, Goten babbles loudly and smacks his hands on Kakarrot’s knees.

“Me, me, me!”

Kakarrot grins and leans down to lift him up.

“You wanna try, Electric Boogaloo?”

Goten nods excitedly.  Gohan loves playing drums like his teacher and his uncle, but Goten has taken more after him, getting more and more interested in the guitar.

“Here,” he hears Vegeta tell Trunks, “You strum the strings and I play the chords.”

Trunks nods and carefully takes the pick from his father.  Kakarrot doesn’t mention that he isn’t putting them in his mouth anymore.  They play like that until the door to the apartment opens and Bulma comes in, swinging an overstuffed messenger bag and laptop bag on the same shoulder.

“Hey,” she calls, voice sounding weary.

Kakarrot waves to her.  Vegeta slings his guitar off (to Trunks’s squawk of annoyance) and swings his son into his arms to go greet her properly.  Bulma grabs the lapels of his denim jacket to pull him in for a kiss and then gives one to Trunks. She then busies herself with her bags and coat.

“Hi!” Goten exclaims, waving his arms.

Bulma wiggles her fingers at him. “Hi, baby.”

Kakarrot sets his own guitar aside and carries Goten over for a proper greeting.

“How was your day?” she asks.

“We got some shit done.  You?”

“About the same.”

Bulma leans her head on Vegeta’s shoulder and it reminds him of Chi-Chi and their current weirdness.

“Hey,” he says, “has, uh, Chi-Chi talked to you about anything recently?”

“About what?”

She takes Trunks from her boyfriend’s arms and spins him around for a moment before placing him down.  As if on cue, Goten wriggles in his arms to be put down and be reunited with his best friend.

“Things have been weird lately,” he explains.

Goten and Trunks have run back into the living room, jabbering in a language they’ve made up that combines the three-year-old Trunks’s more pronounced vocabulary with the two-year-old Goten’s half-formed words.  Bulma pulls a face.

“She never talks to me about any sex stuff, if that’s what you mean,” she says. “I love her but that girl is such a prude sometimes.  I tell her one thing and she’s beet red.”

Vegeta grunts what may have been a laugh. “Was that when you told her about the weights you hung from my piercings?”

Bulma sighs. “Yes.  Among other things.”

Kakarrot sighs. “No, it isn’t that.  We haven’t had trouble with that.”

At least, they hadn’t.  When he first came back, Chi-Chi could hardly keep her hands off of him.  His usually reserved wife was all over him at nearly all hours, doing things they normally only reserved for special occasions.  And then this recent weirdness and distance.

Bulma hums in thought and then says, “A few weeks ago, she said she had something to tell you and she was super excited.  But when I saw her a couple days later, I asked if she told you, and she got kind of gloomy and said there wasn’t anything to tell.”

Kakarrot thinks back to Chi-Chi telling him anything, but there’s nothing.  Then again, judging by what Bulma said, she hadn’t told him. What was it?

“Talk to her,” she says. “Maybe she’s just waiting for you to ask.”

From the sound of it, he thinks that Bulma has a suspicion about what it is even if Chi-Chi didn’t tell her.  He nods. He should do that.

\--

He waits to talk to her until the boys are in bed.  He feels Chi-Chi watching him, though, as he sings Gohan his song to help him go to sleep.  He knows he’s probably grown out of it, but he still smiles as Kakarrot sings it and hugs his stuffed dragon to his chest.  Quietly, he closes the door and follows Chi-Chi to the living room.

“You wanna watch something?” she asks.

She already has the remote in hand and is gesturing towards the TV.  Kakarrot comes up and tries to think of what to say. Instead, he nods.

“Sure.”

He watches her set up Netflix and flick through different shows and movies.  She isn’t saying anything, but he can tell why the way she purses her lips or raises her brows what is actually interesting her to watch.

“Lemme know if you see something you like.” She pauses. “No horror.”

Kakarrot settles next to her on the couch and nods.  His mind is elsewhere, though. Not onstage like in his dream, and not on the road, but not in their apartment either.

“Chi-Chi, did something happen?” he asks.

Her hand stills on the remote and her arm, lifted towards the screen, drops to her lap.

“What do you mean?” she asks.

Kakarrot looks at her, takes her in: her hair down and smelling like her fruity shampoo in the shower, her flannel pajamas she took out in the colder months.  She was beautiful and the thought of her wanting to kiss him off or whatever is laboring her hurts. He wants to scoop her up and take her to the bedroom. Not even have sex, just stay there.  Goten and Gohan, too. He doesn’t want to lose his family.

“You’ve just seemed...and I talked to Bulma.  She said you were excited to tell me something, and then you didn’t.  What happened?”

Chi-Chi looks away, hiding behind the curtain of her hair as it falls over one shoulder.  This isn’t his fiery wife who can fly off the handle. The girl who was so driven to make sure he didn’t have to repeat eleventh grade or who drove out to a show with their son to see him.

“There isn’t anything to say,” she says. “Not anymore.”

The word is weighty and even he can tell that.  The TV, left alone, starts playing a preview for whatever show Chi-Chi paused on and he takes the remote from her hand to mute it.

“What does that mean?”

She lowers her eyes. “It was silly, anyway.  We don’t have room. I shouldn’t have been excited.”

She’s getting ahead of herself and Kakarrot is lost.  Carefully, he reaches out and touches her arm.

“Don’t have room for what?”

He sees her neck work as she swallows and says, “Another baby.”

Another--Kakarrot tries to reconcile the feelings at once.  Surprise, yeah. Elation? Maybe. Another little one. They’d need another apartment, which is fine.  He can probably get a better one. A bigger one. He wants to grin, but Chi-Chi still looks downcast.

“We’re having a baby?” he asks, for clarification.

She draws in a deep breath through her nose, the sound whistling slightly. “We were.”

It hits him, then, and he drops the remote to the floor.  Chi-Chi was dealing with this alone? For how many days? Weeks?  He brings her into his arms and rocks her from side to side.

“Oh, Cheech…”

It’s as if something in her is lowered because Chi-Chi starts to cry.  Maybe she’s been holding it in or maybe it’s having told someone else, but he holds her while she cries and feels tears roll hotly down his cheeks.

“I guess I was working too much,” she says, “Or--”

“It’s not your fault,” he says, cutting her off. “These things just happen sometimes.”

She swallows and nods, wiping at her eyes.

“I’m sorry I kept it from you.  It was just...afterwards, I just wanted to forget about it.  Forget how excited I was…”

Kakarrot strokes her hair and brings her close.

“Hey,” he says, “it’s fine.  I just wish you weren’t dealing with it on your own.”

She nods and let out a watery little laugh.  He thinks they’ll be okay. This distance was her closing in on herself.  Kakarrot kisses her temple.

“And since we never seem to plan them, maybe later--”

“Maybe,” she says, “but not for a while.”

He nods.  As much as the sudden idea of having a third kid is exciting, he can understand why she would want to wait.

“Sure.  Not for a while.”

\--

Kakarrot is onstage again, but this time it isn’t a dream.  Standing here, at some showcase King Kai got them on the lineup for, he’s reminded of their first show.  Standing at the little raised platform of a stage at the Monkey’s Paw. Hearing one of the younger members of the Apes point and say, “I think those are Bardock’s boys.”  Awkwardly huffing into the microphone and wincing at the sound of his own voice. Looking at the others who look just as unsure as him.

Now, they’re used to it.

The five of them play as they always do, like the music is apart from them.  Like it’s a living beast they feed and grow and send out into the crowd. It’s not their usual group, just record executives, but he feels good to be onstage.  This he likes better than touring. Playing locally and going home to his family.

Afterwards, everyone grabs at them and he can hear snatches from the people in their slick suits and shiny shoes.

“Raditz, your cover on  _ OUT Music _ was gorgeous--”

“--Turles, have you responded to your leaked nudes--”

“--Is there an instrument you  _ can’t _ play, Broly?”

They sound like press, not execs, and he feels annoyed.  He can tell the others are, too. Vegeta is adopting that look he would get during shows when someone bumped into him a few too many times.

“Don’t punch anyone,” he whispers.

“I’m only punching them in my head.”

Well, it’s better than the alternative, he figures.  Up through the group of executives, he sees someone he never thought he’d see again.  Kakarrot stops short and he sees his brother do the same.

“Who the fuck invited Cell?” Turles asks.

Broly folds his arms over his chest and scowls.  Raditz, meanwhile, looks like he wants to finish what Lapis started at their launch party and, unlike Vegeta and the executives, he’s going to let him.  Hell, maybe he could finally land a punch on him.

Cell approaches them, smirking a bit.

“Excellent show as always,” he says. “New material?”

“Some of it,” Vegeta says tightly.

Kakarrot catches him flexing his hands in and out of fists.  Cell hasn’t noticed and instead has focused on Raditz.

“I heard you and Lapis are engaged.  Congratulations are in or--”

“Keep his fucking name out of your goddamn mouth,” Raditz snarls, cutting him off. “What are you even doing here?”

Cell makes a face as if he’s offended.

“Oh, I was invited.  I was recently signed to HFIL and--”

“They obviously have a lower standard than North Galaxy,” Turles sneers. “Just go back under whatever rock you crawled out from, asswad.”

Kakarrot swallows, trying not to say what he wants.  It was beautiful watching Lapis sock Cell in the face as much as he wanted to do it himself.  He just has to keep picturing it in his head and he won’t go off on him.

“So hostile,” Cell says with a sigh. “I thought we could put the little scene from the launch party behind us.”

Broly is the one to bark a laugh.

“What happened?” Raditz asks, his eyebrows shooting up. “You think I’m going to forget that you--”

“Kakarrot,” Cell says, looking at him now. “I wanted to apologize for my comments I said about your wife and sons.”

“Okay,” he says. “I don’t forgive you because you’re an awful fucking rapist, but okay.  You apologized. Thanks.”

He seems to ignore him and says, “And shame about the miscarriage.”

He feels his blood turn to ice.  He has no idea who told him. He and Chi-Chi haven’t told anyone, not even his bandmates.

“Who told you?” he asks, shocked at how quiet his voice sounds.  How angry.

If Cell looked surprised that he reacted this way, maybe he would go easy on him, but he didn’t.  He just looked smug.

“Oh, the blogs are just spreading rumors.  I didn’t know it was true. In that case, I suppose--”

Kakarrot isn’t sure what happens until he sees Cell sprawled on the ground and a dull pain is radiating from his knuckles down his hand.  Whis is there as well, apparently summoned by the loud laughter coming from his four bandmates. He looks chagrined as if preparing himself for whatever PR he’ll have to do.

“Kakarrot, this was supposed to be a nice event,” he begins. “I know these execs can be--oh.”

Whis zeroes in on Cell on the ground and instead smiles serenely.

“My mistake,” he says with a flap of his hand. “It appears like you were simply taking out the trash.  I’ll let King Kai and security know.”

Cell is holding his nose and staring up with anger.  Whis keeps on smiling and pulls out his phone.

“I’ll be sure to message Baba over at HFIL to let him know about your...background,” he says with a small laugh. “I’m sure she’ll be thrilled to hear about your past.”

Kakarrot shakes his hand out and stares at Cell.  He doesn’t care if his career is eviscerated (again).  He wants to never see him again. He wants him to never think of Chi-Chi’s name again.

“I’m going home,” he says abruptly.

Whis looks as though he’s about to say something but is stopped by Raditz.

“Go ahead.” Tracts from the tears of laughter he had been shedding glisten on his face but he gives him a knowing look and a squeeze on the shoulder.

He looks at Cell on the ground for what he hopes is the last time and leaves.  He exhales into the chilly hair and makes his way home.

**Author's Note:**

> remember i'm always down to talk on [my tumblr](http://vertigoats.tumblr.com) and also my [public twitter](http://twitter.com/smugsnailcos)


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